A Day of Doctors

Today Adam got to join me for my doctor’s appointment and I also got to sleep until 8:30 for my 9:30 appointment (as opposed to waking up at 6:45 for my 12:00 appointments).  I am a little dilated and have been feeling some tightening but nothing major and according to the doctor the baby isn’t coming anytime soon (meaning the next week…I hope).  Meanwhile I am so ready for baby.  Not only am I ready to finally see his little face and kiss his little toes, but I am so ready to not have back pain.  My back has prevented me from sleeping for the past month.  If I sleep I sleep a couple hours at a time and I have yet to find a comfortable position to sleep in, sit in or stand.  I understand I won’t be getting a full night of sleep once the baby comes but at least the couple hours I get at a time will be good comfortable sleep instead of half asleep and in total pain.  I really hoped Dr. Doo would give me some hope that the baby is coming soon.  In my head I know it’s better for the baby to stay in there as long as he needs…but I am so sleep deprived that all I can think about is how much my back hurts and how sleepy I am and how the last thing I want to do each day is go to bed because I know it’s not going to work out well.

We also went to meet Dr. Chan, Zachary’s doctor.  He was pretty cool and kept our appointment short so we wouldn’t have to pay.  He told us he didn’t want us to worry about anything right now except reading up on the first few weeks of breastfeeding…he said it’s hard and frustrating and it may not work right away, but the hospital we are going to has wonderful resources to help new mothers feed, and the standard is for me to stay for 3 nights giving me a huge breast feeding advantage.  He also wanted us to figure out what immunizations we want to give right away (he suggested Hep A…which is standard in the states right now, and getting a vitamin K shot, he also said that they sometimes give a vaccine against TB which is not given right away in the states but it isn’t necessary right away).  We asked him if there was anything extra we needed to do living in China…he said no.  He basically said relax right now and Dr. Doo would call him to the hospital if he felt our specific pediatrician needed to be there and Dr. Doo would let him know when Zachary was born so we could set up his first appointment.  On one hand it would be nice to get more information, but honestly I have been getting overwhelmed at the information I read about labor and breastfeeding and it is probably better to be put at ease and know there isn’t anything else we need to worry about at this point.  I also really enjoyed the waiting room.  Dr. Doo’s waiting room is so quiet…Hong Kong ex-pat women aren’t as friendly as Huizhou women…I feel like it would be so easy to start conversations with women you see monthly or weekly and are also preggo, but that doesn’t happen.  I did notice at Dr. Chan’s office mothers and nannies were talking with each other talking about their kids and the kids were playing, baby’s were sleeping, feeding and bouncing.  It was great!

After our appointments Adam and I went to lunch (Thai) and we went our separate ways.  Adam headed back to China to go to work, and I went to the hospital to get my second shot of enzymes (for my RH- blood).  It was pretty funny getting a cab and telling him to take me to the hospital…I made sure to tell him it wasn’t an emergency, that I just needed a shot.  Then I went to Ikea to pick up a towel because the “towels” they provide in our apartment were hand towels.  At that point I was exhausted so I headed back to my little bachelorette pad.